What is the saddest movie you've ever seen?

[Gravitycollapse]

Million Dollar Baby was the first saddest movie I ever saw. But it has since been surpassed by several movies including Biutiful, The Elephant Man, Brokeback Mountain, and Synecdoche, New York.

[Sancho]

1. Love Story...

[Brother Buzz]

2. A Thousand Clowns

[NRaleighLiberal]

3. Sophie's Choice comes to mind.

[LeftishBrit]

82. I've never been able to bring myself to see that.

[applegrove]

113. Yes. Just recently watched it again, after 30 years. It is the best movie ever.

[Heddi]

4. Seven Pounds will Will Smith

Maybe I was watching it during a bad time...who knows? But I literally sobbed through that entire movie and watched it through a veil of tears.

I'm not a weepy-at-the-movies person. I NEVER cry during movies. I was a blubbering fool during that one, tho

[tandot]

5. The Remains of the Day

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107943/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Remains_of_the_Day

Beautiful scenery but very depressing

[ailsagirl]

13. That one put me to sleep

If it's the one I'm thinking off

Verbose?

[loli phabay]

6. cyrano de bergerac with gerard depardeiu,

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

94. Good God what an amazing performance by Depardieu

It's by far the most powerful Cyrano ever to be on the screen. Depardieu was born to play that role and 'yes' the final scene will bring tears to the eyes.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

7. The Minus Man or Total Eclipse

[a la izquierda]

8. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

Kills me every time.

But Which Way Home is brutal. It's a documentary about child migrants. If you're not completely heartbroken, you have no soul.

[vanlassie]

30. I had a mini breakdown after Eternal Sunshine.

Was getting a divorce at the time... Just about did me in.

[bench scientist]

9. Kiss of the Spider Woman

the opening montage of Up

Hachi: A Dog's Tale

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Hotel Rwanda

I agree with your selections all guaranteed tearjerkers!

[LisaLynne]

10. Hilary and Jackie.

YMMV, but if you have a slightly competitive relationship with your sister, there is just nothing like it.

[Walk away]

12. Old Yeller. After seeing that as a child I avoided sad movies like the plague. nt

[OriginalGeek]

46. The funny thing

is that is exactly what I entered the thread to post. Saw Old Yeller as a kid, never wanted to see sad movies again. I may be missing out on some great films but judging by the other movies mentioned in this thread, I've been making the right movie choices!

And I'm getting a good list of what not to watch in the future.

[Walk away]

59. Good idea! I'm making a list. nt

[RebelOne]

90. Any movie that involves the death of an animal

saddens me. And I definitely avoid them.

[Grateful for Hope]

98. Same here. Old Yeller hands down.

Although I did watch some films like Brian's Song and Love Story. They were sad, but no way near how sad Old Yeller was to me.

[mimi85]

108. Old Yeller it is.

I cried for hours when I saw that - there should have been warnings for young kids. Ha, my daughter, who is in her 40s STILL hasn't watched it. We had to turn Lassie off when she was little, just tore her up even though all was right in the end.

[B Calm]

112. I agree, Old Yeller will make anybody cry!

[Blue_In_AK]

125. I agree.

That one killed me when I was a kid.

[Stuart G]

14. Night and Fog..

beyond sad.....beyond belief.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0048434/

[Hassin Bin Sober]

15. Recount.

[chungking34]

16. Schindler's List, for me

Other sad films, in my opinion:

Leon
The Deer Hunter
Titanic

[CTyankee]

53. Terms of Endearment

That hospital scene where debra winger tells her two little sons goodbye and the little one starts to sob...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=PuvONUFArdI

[madinmaryland]

17. Brian's Song.

[lastlib]

50. toss-up between that and "Rain Man"

[sammytko]

71. Yes, Brian's song.

[First Speaker]

18. The Diary of Anne Frank

...obvious, maybe...but that's the right answer for me...

[ailsagirl]

119. Of course

Gut-wrenching, really

[newcriminal]

19. Kramer vs. Kramer

or Terms of Endearment

[noamnety]

20. Life is Beautiful (nt)

[Boom Sound 416]

48. +1

Saddest, but all time Fav

[Trailrider1951]

62. Yes, it's a brilliant movie, but so, so sad

I would like to add the movie, Testament.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086429/?ref_=nv_sr_3


...with a bang and a whimper.

[canoeist52]

130. Yep, "Testament" has haunted me for 30 years.

mostly because it seems heartbreakingly possible.

[LynneSin]

21. Breaking the Waves

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breaking_the_Waves

Amazing movie but very very sad in the end.

[BootinUp]

117. quite a movie. nt

[Locut0s]

22. The Deer Hunter...

[graywarrior]

23. Marley & Me

Jesus. Just the thought of it makes me cry.

[RebelOne]

88. Yes, yes, yes. I loved that movie and I read the book.

Funny until the end. Then it made me want to cry.

[nomorenomore08]

24. "Dead Man Walking" made me sob openly, in the middle of a high school class.

So I guess it'd be that one by default...

[Locut0s]

29. Ohh, another I agree with that I forgot about. nt.

[Taitertots]

25. The boy in the striped pajamas

[Waiting For Everyman]

26. Doctor Zhivago (the original) nt

[Doc_Technical]

27. Grave of the fireflies.

I'm glad I saw it and I never want to see it aqain.

[Locut0s]

28. I'll second this!!

Forgot all about it.

[Xyzse]

43. I concur and third this...

That gets me emotional any time I hear the name.

[sakabatou]

86. +1

[PassingFair]

96. Hands down the saddest GD thing I've EVER seen.

I get a headache just THINKING about HOW SAD I WAS when I saw it.

I read about it somewhere and asked my husband if he'd seen it, he had,
and he told me never to watch it, because it was so sad.

Of course, the next afternoon my two teen daughters and I watched it,
I'll never forget the look on my husband's face when he walked into the
living room, to find the three of us, crying our eyes out, completely devastated,
on the couch.

"I TOLD YOU NOT TO WATCH IT" he said with dismay.
He was so sad that we'd put ourselves through it.

I think my daughters gained insight from the film, I know I did.
But I would never want to see it again, either.

[yellowdogintexas]

129. this is undoubtedly the saddest movie ever.

like you I am glad I saw it and I never want to see it again either.

[vanlassie]

31. Philadelphia.

It's also on my top ten.

[CrawlingChaos]

32. For me, it was Umberto D.

The 1952 De Sica film. It DEVASTATED me. I guess partly because it felt so honest - not manipulative at all. Although I will cry at any film, manipulative or not, where an animal dies. I try to avoid those like the plague.

But nothing got me like Umberto D. I didn't just cry, I sobbed the whole night long. I can't recall such a strong reaction with any other film.

[orleans]

33. what dreams may come

my reaction to it was pretty strange. i rented it but didn't really know what it was about. and within the first few minutes of watching it i had tears streaming down my face. and that was how i ended up watching the entire movie.

later i read the book

"In an introductory note, Matheson explains that the characters are the only fictional component of the novel. Almost everything else is based on research, and the end of the novel includes a lengthy bibliography" --from wikipedia

also the movie "noel"
i love it but there is a lot of sadness there imo

[raptor_rider]

34. Mine too!!!

It makes me cry every time! Just shows, even in death, with your soul, you still have what God gave you, self will.

[Xyzse]

44. That is a beautiful movie.

I loved it...

I didn't know much about it, I just thought it was going to be funny with Robin Williams in it.
I was surprised, but not disappointed.

I bought the dvd a few days later, after renting it, when Blockbuster was still open.

[spiderpig]

56. Didn't the movie have incredible cinematography?

With that intense color saturation in the afterworld. When the dog comes bounding through the field I just lost it.

[Xyzse]

74. It does.

[raptor_rider]

35. We Were Soldiers

My dad received his medals, in Vietnam. It was May 6, 1968. He was the radio person, next to his Sargent. In battle, hunkered in a ditch, when friendly fire rocket hit them. He suffered a collapsed lung, shrapnel though out his body.

Now at age 65, he still has a piece of shrapnel in his right lung, has atrophy in his left leg from the shrapnel damage. Even 9 yrs ago, had a mass removed from hid left thigh. They thought it was a tumor, however it turned out to be a mass that his body created to protect him from a massive piece of shrapnel moving in his leg, almost 40 yrs later.

Yes, that movie gets me. Too much real life to see what my dad went through.

[jrandom421]

70. I agree

I had a couple of friends who were stationed at Ft Campbell at the time, and while they didn't have any family members in Hal Moore's unit, they lived in the same neighborhood, and helped deliver some of those telegrams sent by the Defense Department. Seeing that brought back some of my most painful memories from friends who were actually there at the time.

[pinboy3niner]

123. Just after that, DoD switched to in-person death notifications

Telegrams continued to be used when someone was wounded. I have some of the telegrams my family got about me. They even sent one to my little brother, who was serving in Vietnam with me.

In the U.S., my family got this one...



I also met some of the vets of the Ia Drang battle depicted in the film. Hal Moore, Joe Galloway, Ernie Savage, and Doc Loos signed my book. Savage and Loos were both with the 'lost platoon,' and and Doc Loos was put in for the MoH (he was awarded the DSC).

Though I was assigned to notification duty several times, I count my blessings that I was never called to do that.

[pinboy3niner]

124. I'm glad your dad is still hanging in there

A lot of us still carry our shrapnel, and our scars. Tell your dad "Welcome Home" from another vet...

2/501 Infantry, 101st Airborne Div., '69-70

[avebury]

36. Shanendoah (Jimmy Stewart - shows the impact of war on a family)

As much as he tries to keep his family out of the war he can't. Over the movie he loses so many family members.

[Inkfreak]

37. Of Mice & Men popped in my mind 1st

But there are a few good ones mentioned above. Schindlers List & Marley & Me.

[underpants]

38. We Are Marshall

I have close connection with that tragic event. In fact, I have met "Red" at several Marshall tailgate parties. My uncle is an extra in the movie.

One of my best friends was watching it with a bunch of other guys ( very "manly" types these) and they just finally stopped the movie and agreed that they needed to stop acting like they weren't crying.

[sarge43]

39. All Quite on the Western Front n/t

[mainer]

40. Truly, Madly, Deeply

About a woman grieving her lost love -- and then he comes back as a ghost.

[ailsagirl]

118. Exceptional movie!!

[Paladin]

41. Testament (1983)

End of the world stuff, after a nuclear holocaust. People in the San Francisco Bay area, waiting to see what gets them first: radiation poisoning or starvation. Well done, but about as much fun to watch as a dead kitten.

[Rowdyboy]

42. Beaches with Bette Midler and Barbara Hershey....

I sobbed like a child

[Boxerfan]

45. Easy Rider....Just the final scene

It was the 1st time I cried because of a movie...

I was a hippy kid who spent a lot of time in Texas-so I "got" it.

The Deer hunter is the one I avoid nowadays.

[ailsagirl]

120. That just blew everyone away

Really a shocker

[demwing]

47. The Road

Mesmerizing film, completely crushed me.

[bigwillq]

49. Brokeback Mountain, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

are two sad ones for me that come to mind.

[Shadowflash]

51. Under the Lighthouse Dancing.

[gort]

52. Ring of Bright Water (1969)

Saw it in a movie theater when I was 8. I was inconsolable.

[archiemo]

54. Steel Magnolias...not the whole movie, but the scene in the hospital and the funeral.

I don't think I've ever been crying so hard because of the sadness of the moment when M'Lynn erupts in anger after Shelby's funeral and burst out in laughter when Wheezer is offered up as a punching bag.

[Nedsdag]

55. Il Postino

What made it even sadder was the star of the movie, Massimo Troisi, died hours after the film was completed due to a heart ailment.

[klook]

142. Sad and beautiful movie

Il Postino is a great tribute to true love. And Massimo Troisi -- OMG, what a great performance, PLUS total dedication to his art. Wow. This is one of the sweetest movies of all time!

[spiderpig]

57. OK, I'm an expert on this subject

I have eye issues requiring 7 drops a day to control pressure. It feels better to irrigate the eye with tears, so I'm on youtube all the time running classic tearjerker scenes.

Current favorites:

Shawshank Redemption
The Natural
Legends of the Fall (the whole damn movie)
Pride of the Yankees

I won't include sad animal movies because I was permanently scarred by Bambi & Dumbo at an early age.

[Shankapotomus]

58. Probably Casualties of War

Can't remember if I've seen anything with a sadder story.

[sendero]

60. One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest...

... left me depressed for days.

[Brigid]

61. "The Green Mile"

John Coffey watching Fred Astair and Ginger Rogers in a movie (the first time he has ever seen one) and saying "Why, they's angels!".

[newcriminal]

69. He killed them with their love.

[RebelOne]

89. I never saw the movie, but I read the book.

And after that I did not want to see the movie because it was sad enough in print.

[mucifer]

64. El Norte

[TeamPooka]

67. That is a powerful film.

[Codeine]

65. Midnight Cowboy. That was some unrelenting misery

that managed to finish off even more sadly than it started.

[WillowTree]

66. Schindler's List.

No matter how many times I see it, I will always be reduced to sobs in the final scene with the survivors and their descendants. One of the most moving things I've ever seen.

[mucifer]

68. The Conversation

[Douglas Carpenter]

72. besides "Old Yeller" and "The Champ" - I would have to go for "The Killing of John Lennon'

Last edited Tue Dec 24, 2013, 12:44 AM - Edit history (1)

not so much because of the direct subject of the death of John Lennon - but because the film explains in detail from his own words the mindset and motivations of Mark David Chapman - it was very disturbing and very real:

&list=PLX55TNsHeT30NhT-KnbuIDsucmvATM7lk

[gvstn]

73. Long Day's Journey Into Night

I'm not sure if it is the "saddest" movie I have ever seen but boy does it hit a little close to the bone in spots for me. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056196/reviews?ref_=tt_urv

Interesting topic. I'll have to think about which movie is really the saddest movie i have ever seen. As I get older, I find it is the movies with the sappy (happy) endings that make me tear up.

[cliffordu]

75. My family Christmas films

From the 1950s

[davidpdx]

76. The most depressing

The Hours...made me want to jump off a building.

[tokenlib]

77. Charlie Chaplin's "City Lights"..

The little tramp helps a blind flower seller to regain her eyesight without her really knowing who helped her.. The climactic scene when she realizes that the poor little tramp is her benefactor rips ones heart out. Masterful....they don't make movies like Chaplin did any more...

[riverwalker]

78. The Grey n/t

[valerief]

79. Someone told me the plot to Million Dollar Baby when it first came out, and I

laughed my ass off. I thought the person telling me was pulling my leg. I couldn't believe it when I learned it was true!!!

I've never seen it but the idea of it still makes me laugh.

[BootinUp]

100. What was funny to you about it?

[valerief]

111. The woman boxer thing was funny. Men are the pugilists, not women.

Then when she said the woman died at the end, I thought of course she has to die! Partly because people love to cry, but mostly because she crossed over into a man's territory. Back in the days of the Hays Code, fallen women had to die, too, even if they reformed, because punishment always had to be meted out.

Hollywood cracks me up.

[BootinUp]

114. Here's one of the female boxers

in the movie

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucia_Rijker

Womens Boxing was included in the 2012 London Olympics

[BootinUp]

115. And some real life action

A legend in female boxing Christy Martin vs. Laila Ali (daughter of Muhammad Ali)

[joshcryer]

132. Ronda Rousey would maybe like to have a word with you...

[civillawyer]

137. That is one tough lady.

Bar none.

[joshcryer]

138. Word.

[gopiscrap]

144. welcome to DU

[frogmarch]

80. Tuck Everlasting

made me sob and sob. I've seen many tear-jerker movies, but this one really got to me.

[KurtNYC]

81. The first ten minutes of "Amadeus" just blows me away every time

Jealousy, guilt, regret, the confessions of a dying man with a heavy heart. A Judas like figure who has killed a gifted human. Brilliantly conceived, brilliantly delivered. Perhaps not purely sad (and the rest of the film is an arc of emotions) but it moves me to tears reliably.

[LeftishBrit]

83. The one that depressed me most was not supposed to be sad

'Hannah and Her Sisters'. Really got me down; especially as one of the themes (thinking you may be terminally ill; finding you're not; and then becoming depressed from all the anxiety) is something that happened to me in adolescence.

Never much liked Woody Allen anyway.

The really sad one that makes me cry whenever I see it, and yet I love it, is the film version of 'La Traviata'

[pinboy3niner]

84. Platoon

[BootinUp]

85. Million Dollar Baby.

[nirvana555]

87. Well, there are quite a few for me but the one that comes to mind is

The Pianist. It's the one that Adrian Brody won an Oscar for. When he's aimlessly walking around
with that can of food and he didn't have anything to open it with just tore me up. Also The
Deer Hunter and Sophie's Choice.

[Blue_In_AK]

127. Did you ever read the novel "Sophie's Choice"?

I thought it was much harder to take than the movie. I couldn't even finish reading it for a while because I couldn't stop crying. Most books don't affect me that way.

[nirvana555]

131. Never read Sophie's Choice and wouldn't be able to. The story is just too

Horrific...

[Demo_Chris]

91. AI

[spiderpig]

105. The bear just did me in.

I've only seen it once.

[Akoto]

92. Memoirs of a Geisha, until the very end. n/t

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

93. Akira Kurosawa's ultimate masterpiece Ikiru

which I believe means existence in Japanese. It's a heck of a powerful film about an old man who learns that he's dying of cancer, discovers that no one cares, not even his son, and decides to find some meaning in his meaningless life through a very simple final action.

[Locut0s]

95. How could I have forgotten this? +1000

[Boomerproud]

97. Leaving Las Vegas

I couldn't finish it. Many others that have already been mentioned here.

[GoCubsGo]

99. That was one of the most depressing movies I have ever seen.

I saw the whole thing. I guess I was hoping it might somehow have a happier ending.

[awoke_in_2003]

101. The Notebook...

my biggest fear is either me losing my faculties, or my wife of 20 years not knowing who the hell I am. I cannot watch the last five minutes of that movie- it scares me. The movie implies it, but they didn't die of natural causes- they chose which way to go.

[alphafemale]

102. Many of these are great. I also want to mention the ending of "My Dog Skip"

spoiler












When the kid has left home and gone to college and Skip is no longer able to jump on his "boy's" childhood bed. And the boy's father, also old and with some struggle helps him.

[nirvana555]

103. There are so many heart wrenching movies. Leaving Las Vegas has a horrible

meaning for me as recently one of my best friend's husband intentionally drank himself to death due to depression just this past July. I was so shocked. I thought he was one of the happiest people I knew. What a shock ....

[spiderpig]

104. Have to throw in Mr. Skeffington

Bette Davis as Fanny Skeffington(once considered a great beauty in NYC but has had diphteria or something and lost her hair): "I'm old. I'm ugly."

Claude Rains, her older once-wealthy husband that she discarded (returning from Europe blind from being in a concentration camp): "You'll always be beautiful to me."

Then they ascend the stairs together while she says "It's my turn to take care of you."

[Tx4obama]

106. Life is Beautiful (Original Italian language version) and Penny Serenade

La Vita e` Bella/Life is beautiful http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118799/?ref_=nv_sr_1

Penny Serenade http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0034012/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

[dipsydoodle]

107. Somewhere in Time with Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour

Beautiful music too by John Barry too.

[Tom Ripley]

109. J.T. a television movie from 1969 written by Jane Wagner and starring Kevin Hooks

It's a heartbreaker

[jrandom421]

126. It was so sad

but what made up for it was the kitten JT received from his grandmother.

[Kablooie]

110. Old Yeller

Nuf said.

[Myrina]

116. Audrey Rose & A Brief Encounter

Not sad in the typical Hollywood way, but both made me cry like a baby.

Audrey Rose is a late 70's movie about a little girl who's having horrific nightmares about dying in a car accident. Turns out she may be reincarnated from a little girl who died in such an accident several years prior. Her original birth father is a doctor or somesuch (Anthony Hopkins) and meets the family, and starts past-life regression on her. Sadly, he takes her too far one particular time and is not able to retrieve her from the trauma of the accident & she dies, again.

A Brief Encounter is an English movie made in the 50's, about a contented (bored?) housewife who meets a man at the Subway and they tiptoe around having an affair. Remember, England in the 50's - no torrid sex. They fib to their spouses to spend a few afternoons a week together - lunching, going to movies, riding in the country - and when it progresses to the point of getting serious, he is offered a job in another country & decides for the sake of his marriage, to take his family & leave. She is numb & contemplates, briefly, suicide, then returns to her suburban home and boring husband. The movie is set against the Rach 2 and it haunts the entire film.

[ailsagirl]

121. "Ordinary People"

Definitely gave me a lump in the throat (the ending)

Fantastic movie-- so much good acting/writing

And directing (Robert Redford's directorial debut-- not too shabby!)

Oftentimes, movies with uplifting endings make me tear up.

[ailsagirl]

122. Years and years ago... The King and I

I was just a kid-- first time I ever cried at a movie

[Matariki]

128. The Journals of Knud Rasmussen

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0478366/?ref_=fn_al_tt_5

Both my bf and I left theater bawling like babies. Great movie.

[NewJeffCT]

133. Fahrenheit 9/11

the fact that W became president has kept me depressed for 13 years now.

[MiddleFingerMom]

134. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0914798/

[Shrek]

135. "Gran Torino"

Sweet November

Saving Private Ryan

[life long demo]

136. Brian's Song and We Were Soldiers

One old, the other not too old. Both great.

[elleng]

139. Sophie's Choice.

Can't even think about it.

[Throd]

140. Avatar. People laid out good money to see that steaming pile of shit.

[Katashi_itto]

141. Grave of the Fireflies

[geardaddy]

143. Precious, Million Dollar Baby

A lot of Mike Leigh's movies, and Synecdoche, NY.

[Common Sense Party]

145. Taking Chance

with Kevin Bacon.